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December

27/12/2014

Dear Reader,

A Happy Christmas to you and may you enjoy a successful New Year. It is going to be a very busy 2015 for WI members wherever they live and let us look forward to another 100 years of the WI.

17th December

This evening two members went into Bletchley for the Bletchley Belles concert. This group was formed originally from WI members but now it includes non-members too. The choir raises money for Willen Hospice and has reached £10,000 over the years . Tonight it was also collecting funds for the Christmas scheme run by the Milton Keynes churches to provide food and shelter over the holiday to the homeless. The hall looked lovely, the singing was good and the young soloist from the Bedford Modern School played the cello and the piano beautifully. The audience has to sing as well and there is always a fun pantomime on offer. A lovely beginning to Christmas.

10th December

The discussion group from the local WI met this evening in a member's home. It was a full house and the talk and the wine flowed.The subject under discussion was "Advertising" and it proved a good choice. Some of those present had worked in advertising which was a useful addition to the topic. The majority get exceedingly fed up with the repeated adverts on television, so much so that they don't watch the programmes as they are first aired but record them. Then they can watch without the constant interruptions for commercial breaks. If I was paying to advertise in this manner, this practice would give me pause. Some of us cannot understand the adverts anyway and become exceedingly cross when two thirds of the daily newspapers are taken up with full page coloured advertisements. We are told this keeps the cost of the papers down but surely it is becoming counter-productive. Is it money which changes promotion into advertising? Not many of us could remember actually going out to buy an item advertised on the television. And as for those cold calls on the telephone and e-mails...............well, many waxed lyrical on what they thought of those! So we swapped shut-off techniques and ways in which technical advances could be used to block the calls altogether.There were some adverts--- mostly from the past--- which were remembered with affection and some slogans that will never be forgotten but at present we didn't think there were any that would stand the test of time.

8th December

Another pre-Christmas celebration saw 44 local WI members out for dinner at a village inn not many miles away.This means that we can hire the community bus and partake of a second glass of wine without fear from a policeman with a breathalizer at the end of the lane. We enjoyed a wonderful meal, lots of talk and shared memories of the past year. I look forward to seeing everyone dressed up in her sparkling finery and in festive mood.How better to celebrate a successful year than to meet socially and informally like this?

6th December

Along with other organisations in the town, the WI was asked to provide and decorate a Christmas tree for the Parish Church. Each display had to be based on a carol so we had chosen "In the Bleak Midwinter" which we thought would be nice and simple. Two years ago we decorated a real tree which sat above a radiator throughout the 12 days of Christmas and when returned was not expected to live. However it is now growing strongly in its new home in the North, safely avoiding being dug up again to stand in the church this year. We bought a little pretend tree from a big store nearby which sufficed and looked very pretty covered in icicles, snow and bright red hearts.

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Food for Thought

8/12/2014

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3rd December

Countdown to Christmas has started in real earnest because tonight it was the party meeting of the local WI.Of course there was quite a bit of serious business to complete not least the announcement of who was going to be responsible for what next year and how to pay our subscriptions and claim Gift Aid on them for the first time.Like all WIs we are celebrating the national 100 year anniversary in 2015. It was announced that our WI was celebrating with an excursion to Denman College in October, coachride door to door and a programme just for us.Everyone was delighted to hear of this plan although we knew that in order to really deserve it we were being asked to lend a hand when the centenary baton comes to Winslow in April and when we stage a big promotion in the town in July.There's no such thing as a free lunch! We were also directed towards forthcoming events in March and told that unfortunately it was not our turn to send a delegate to the AGM in the Albert Hall in June.

Then it was time for a gorgeous food buffet and a good quiz and a frenzied competitive craft activity which allowed us to get thoroughly stuck up with glue and selotape to produce a fairytale castle with a sleeping beauty within. I think that was what we were doing because there were some quite spectacular presentations of toilet rolls which looked a bit like that!

28th November

Did you read that article in the Buckingham Advertiser from a new member of Buckingham WI who is enjoying being a member, a committee member and managing to fit it in to her busy work schedule as a doctor? It shows it can be done and she writes so positively and enthusiastically about the opportunities both past and present within the WI movement.I bet that attitude will stir up some women to join in the new year.

27th November

Today a lot of WI members from the north of the County gathered at a private house in Stony Stratford to view items transported up from the WI shop in High Wycombe.Unfortunately a similar event planned for Great Missenden had to be cancelled because of illness.The regulars who attend the Christmas shop have come to think of it as the start of Christmas and we also look forward to the homemade mince pies that are always served during the day.It is a very social event and it would be a pity if this tradition came to an end. It is a long way down to Stuart Lodge so that northern members don't often have the opportunity to see what there is on offer down there and certainly do not know of the wealth of craft items now on sale in the shop.

25th November

Most of the members of the local WI reading group had enjoyed reading Nigel Slater's "Toast". Subtitled the Story of a Boy's Hunger it was a semi-autobiography---if there is such a category. It told of his unhappy childhood and of his growing determination from a fairly young age to become a chef. The author had hung his story on items of food remembered from his early years, a lot of which had appeared as newspaper articles or in magazines which was a different approach and worked well until the final stages when he actually went out into the world and became a chef. Then some of us lost interest and I began to worry about the state of his teeth after years of gorging on sweets and sugared confections.Perhaps a braver soul will tweet him to enquire into his dental health

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